NASCAR Returns to The Chase Championship Format for all Three Touring Series
NASCAR needed to make changes to all of its touring series championship formats. It’s what the fans have been demanding; it’s what the drivers have wanted; it’s what the heroes of the sport of stock car racing have emphasized over the past few years. The format NASCAR had been using wasn’t working.
Every one of NASCAR’s Cup Series 36 races needed to have import, as did its O’Reilly Auto Parts and CRAFTSMAN Truck series. And for the past few years that hasn’t been the case. With an elimination format that removed drivers after a ‘regular” season that rewarded race wins but didn’t reward good finishes over the course of the entire season, the elimination format sure didn’t sit well with fans, drivers, teams or sponsors.
NASCAR knew they needed to make changes and, with the help and input of people like Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr., as well as current team owners and drivers (think Denny Hamlin, who’s still trying to earn his first Cup Series title), a new format has been devised.
Actually, it’s an old format revived: NASCAR is returning to its “The Chase” format that was in place from 2004 through the 2013 season. With this enhanced format, there will be more drivers capable of running for the title and the importance of every single race in the 36-contest campaign will return. NASCAR intends to reward consistency while, at the same time rewarding those first to the checkered flags.
“As NASCAR transitions to a revised championship model, the focus is on rewarding driver and team performance each and every race,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR president emphasized. “At the same time, we want to honor NASCAR’s storied history and the traditions that have made the sport so special. Our fans are at the heart of everything we do, and this format is designed to honor their passion every single race weekend.”
That’s something NASCAR hasn’t done with the previous format that didn’t allow more drivers the opportunity to run for the title. For 2026 – and hopefully for a long time – NASCAR’s Cup Series will have an end-of-season championship format for its Chase. The driver with the most points after the post-season slate will be the champion.
The “Win and you’re in” format is going to the trash bin. A race win no longer guarantees automatic entry into The Chase at the end of the year. And this format will stretch from the NASCAR Cup Series to the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series (formerly Xfinity) and NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series. NASCAR intends to reward winners with added points for all races, giving the driver first to the checkers 55 points, up from 40, rewarding drivers who go for those wins, ensuring aggressive racing and strong team performance that will remain central to each race weekend. Points for all other positions, including stage points, remain the same.
The Chase will consist of the final 10 races of the Cup Series campaign, will encompass the final nine races for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and the final seven Truck Series races. This allows a similar proportion and calendar timeline between the ‘regular’ season and the post-season events for each series. The Chase in NASCAR’s Cup Series will feature 16 racers; 12 O’Reilly Auto Parts Series drivers will compete for the title, while the CRAFTSMAN Truck Series championship field will have 10 drivers. The points leader after all regular season races are complete will be awarded a 25-point cushion over the second seed.
Chase seedings for the NASCAR Cup Series are noted below. The O’Reilly and CRAFTSMAN series seedings will be the same, albeit cut off at 12 and 10 drivers, respectively:
1st: 2100
2nd: 2075
3rd: 2065
4th: 2060
5th: 2055
6th: 2050
7th: 2045
8th: 2040
9th: 2035
10th: 2030
11th: 2025
12th: 2020
13th: 2015
14th: 2010
15th: 2005
16th: 2000
Once the new format had been announced, early on January 12 – and just about a month before the season-starting Daytona 500 on the Daytona International Speedway oval – several former and current drivers had a chance to voice their opinions. Interestingly, NASCAR invited two drivers named Chase, Briscoe and Elliott, to the announcement.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was relieved by the change. “I was really excited to hear the news that we were getting closer to a full 36-race format,” he said. “It makes it simpler for our fans to follow; I’m a fan of the sport and now I’m compelled to plug in every single week, because I know there’s a long form objective for my driver to accomplish to be able to give himself the opportunity to win the championship.” Mark Martin, who claimed he was a proponent to return to the 36-race format completely, believes, “This is the most perfect compromise that you could ever ask for. It’s going to require our 2026 champion to be lightning fast and incredibly consistent, and that’s what we can all get behind.”
Chase Elliott applauded the sanctioning body for listening to the fans, to Earnhardt Jr., to Martin and to the drivers currently competing in all NASCAR series. “I think we all want it to be better because , to Dale’s point, we are fans of this sport. I think we oftentimes forget how good we had it through all those years of Chase format. I think it is a really nice compromise. I think,” he mused, “getting a full season was going to be a pretty big challenge and I’m not sure there’s really a better place to land, than a true, 10-race Chase, really similar to what we had through those years of the epic battles we saw.”
The years from 2004-2013 were dominated by Jimmie Johnson, the seven-time Cup Series titleholder but, at the same time he had plenty of drivers making him work hard for it, including Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, among many others. That competition between successful racers was intriguing for fans and for other competitors. “Celebrate the guys who went out there and did a good job. I think this format promotes that,” Elliott reminded.
Ryan Blaney, the 2023 titleholder with Team Penske, finished second last season to Kyle Larson of Hendrick Motorsports. He noted that he, Elliott and Chase Briscoe, all on-hand for the announcement of this change, grew up during the Chase era. “This is what we watched as kids,” he said. “I loved seeing it and I loved seeing close battles.” More than anything, the participants in making this change – and many drivers, team owners, sponsors and ancillary partners conferred with the sanctioning body on this change, missed seeing the close battles inherent with the first edition of The Chase.
“We all get grief about over-aggressiveness,” Blaney noted, “and sometimes you get put in these situations where it’s a win and move on type [of] scenario. I think it’s going to clean up a lot of the racing side of it and get back to the purity side of it, where it is a little bit more of not breath, a little bit more of the beautiful part form that I grew up loving. I appreciate NASCAR for listening!”
Joe Gibbs Racing driver Briscoe, who was in the thick of the 2025 battle, is excited by the change. “It just has every characteristic you want in a championship format, where winning matters, consistency matters, DNFs are going to matter. Just the points swing now, with winning, you’re not going to have that win and in, but with the 15 extra bonus points, winning can take a guy from fourth in the championship all the way to having the lead and vice versa. I think it just adds so many new elements and it’s honestly a great format.”
NASCAR listened to its teams and drivers, who weren’t enthralled with the rules running through to the close of the 2025 campaign. “The tide had turned in the garage area,” O’Donnell admitted. “We did a lot of listening. We did a lot of talking and looked at a ton of ideas, modeled a lot of different things. We tried to strike a balance and not everyone’s going to love it. We don’t expect this to be the magic wand we wave from a NASCAR standpoint and say everything’s now great. We’ve got a lot of work to do from our standpoint with the relationships in the garage, getting back to those, but getting back to who we are. That’s hard-core racing and The Chase and people having fun. We work in a pretty damn good industry, and we need to have some fun, celebrate the wins. I’m proud of where we landed as a group.”